Mid-April Update

Hello all! A little mid-month update for you!

Work

As you all saw last week, I've been hired on as a full time baker and decorator at Gigi's Cupcakes here in Norman. I love love love my job so much that waking up at 5 am doesn't even bother me. As a matter of fact, this upcoming weekend I have to wake up at 4 am to be at work by 5 am, and I'm still not upset. It's Easter weekend, so it's going to be craaazy! All I need is some Red Bull...

On a sad note, I am no longer working for Boyd Street. I'm sitting here in the office on my last day, having finished everything I need to do to transfer responsibility over to the new EIC. It's surreal that I am leaving. I feel like I grew up with Boyd Street, starting back in '11 as an unpaid intern hired by Jake to design ads a couple of times a week. I have these thoughts of wanting to keep connected to the magazine but after several weeks of consideration I've decided that my sole focus needs to be on baking and baking alone. I work full time for Gigi's, and when I get home, I bake for my blog and for custom orders through my blog, so I really don't have much time for anything else. It's one of those bitter-sweet moments for me: leaving something that I put so much effort into to begin something that has been a life-long dream. I seriously love what I do at Gigi's and cannot be happier. I look forward to it every single day! I'm super excited about what the future holds.

Personal

This will connect a few of my topics, but lately I've realized how grateful I am to be making new friends. My co-workers are all hoots, and I love the ladies I bake with, the ladies who work in the front, and the guys who work there, too. We all get along well and have similar personalities. It is SO nice to find other people who get giddy over baking something new!

On top of those friends, I have been focusing on meeting and strengthening new friendships of people I've known for a while. It's been a great and re-energizing opportunity to spend time with others who want to be in the same spiritual place as I want to be. Over the last few months I had been trying to hang on to friendships that were dying, and I felt like I was surrounded by miserable people. I caught myself sinking into the same kind of misery even though my life was good, so I decided that in order to make changes within myself, that I had to make some changes around me. It's astounding how much a "change in scenery" can make a difference in your attitude. 

Experience, Strength, Hope

As stated in my personal section, I had been hanging onto friendships that were dwindling. The last several months, I'd had a very sassy attitude with people, was snappy and becoming an anti-joy to be around. After a weekend women's retreat, I had become disgusted with my attitude and knew I needed to change something. Upon several sessions of meditation and writing, I had realized that I had come to the point where my past behavior could no longer stay and that I had to make some changes if I wanted to keep progressing. I am grateful I noticed my bad patterns and that they were stemming from my surrounding environment. I had been around people who were being negative about any and everything and I was taking on the same kind of attitude. What do I have that requires me to be negative? Absolutely nothing. My life is good, even great most days, but I'm a person who absorbs other people's emotions. So I've made a concerted effort to change my surroundings to be more positive which has made my stress levels and bad-mood levels drop tremendously.

Puppy(s)

My sweet little puppy will be 1 on May 1st! I cannot believe it! Yes, he has a birthday, it was on his AKC registration papers. We will be celebrating with home-made doggie treats and a birthday photo shoot. I can't believe how big he has gotten. It's like having an actual baby sometimes.

As most of you also know, I fostered a pug from Homeward Bound Pug Rescue. It was quite an experience. For a while, I've been exclaiming how I wanted a second dog. I read somewhere that getting a second dog as a "pet" for your first dog was a bad idea. I remembered that statement very clearly because that's exactly what I had been thinking of the second dog as. It may sound horrible, but my intentions were not to ignore or place importance over one or the other. It was so that my dog wouldn't be so bored all the time. So I decided, very irrationally, to apply to foster a dog. 3 days after starting my new full-time job. Needless to say that it was a very stressful two weeks for me and probably also Jose.

We got to foster Yoda, a sweet young black male pug. He was a cutie pie, but didn't even know "Sit" or "Bed." Chauncey and Yoda loved each other, though, and played all day, every day. I taught Yoda a few simple commands in preperation of him being adopted. My experience with fostering was not easy, but I was glad I could help out the pug rescue, and I know that if Yoda would've stuck around a few more weeks, it would've eventually been pretty easy to have two dogs. Fostering is hard emotionally and physically. It's like having a new puppy, except they're fully grown. When a dog comes to a new home, they aren't used to your surroundings or your daily schedule, just like a puppy. So you have to be patient with them, and teach them where to go potty, when it's time to eat, when it's time for bed, etc. Yoda caught on pretty quick, but we only had him for two weeks, which is definitely not enough time with a foster to get them acclimated to your home. Yoda got adopted by a very sweet woman and man who owned another black pug. They were excited to get him, so I hope his future will be nothing but lap naps and lots of treats!

Health & Exercise

I miss yoga. I have not been able to make it as often as I used to due to my new schedule, but I am hoping to get a new schedule set up so I'm making it twice a week again.

I know I've said it a million times, but I am considering changing my eating habits. I want to do two different elimination diets for at least a month each to see if I feel better when I'm not eating lactose or gluten. I'm sure overall it would help to cut back on both, but I think my energy levels have changed and need to switch from burning carbs to burning fat (like we are supposed to). I'm well aware that humans, specifically humans after 2-3 years of age, shouldn't even be ingesting dairy, but goodness gracious... cheese exists. I just can't help it. I could skip all other dairy except cheese (and butter when baking). Gluten, however, is a different story. All I eat is bread and pasta (I think I'm Italian, but can't find an ancestry tied back to it). So I want to see if changing my diet from all-carbs to something a little more natural will help my energy levels.

Anyways, that's it for now. Thanks for reading! Oh, and one more funny photo.